


Amber Eyes

by TeriTheTacticalUnicorn



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Author Is Sleep Deprived, Dragon Age Spoilers, F/M, Modern Girl in Thedas
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:15:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25045246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeriTheTacticalUnicorn/pseuds/TeriTheTacticalUnicorn
Summary: Grace Henries is one of three heirs to a huge tech franchise in Seattle, and a Middle School Teacher before being pulled through the fade.This is a fluffy, totally self-serving story because Moony and I need it in our lives! I am not sorry! 💜💜
Relationships: Female Inquisitor & Cullen Rutherford, Female Inquisitor/Cullen Rutherford
Kudos: 9
Collections: Modern Girl in Thedas





	1. Thedas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MoonLight_Heretic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoonLight_Heretic/gifts).



> All inner thought is in italics, as are dream sequences or flashbacks, I promise you'll know which is which. Tags may change as I write, as may the rating! You've been warned!

Grace Henries was a teacher. That's probably all she'd be remembered for by her fake, rich friends. The daughter of a Tech Mogul, Vernon Henries of Henries Technology. 

Born into privilege and money in the Pacific Northwest, Seattle, to be specific. She chose not to follow in her father and brothers footsteps and work for Henries Tech. No, she wanted to teach middle school. She liked her loft apartment, her 2016 GMC Envoy that despite its several cross country trips, still ran as if she bought it yesterday. 

But most importantly, her dog Chance was her baby. The lovable service pitbull, the one who warned her of any upcoming anxiety attacks. 

Nothing could've prepared Grace for the strange, green light that came from her living room below her as she dressed for bed. 

"Is someone there?" She called out before tossing her long, golden locks into a messy bun atop her head while descending the creaky iron stairs. Chance was barking up a storm now, warning Grace of danger. 

"What is it, boy? Huh?" She said, easing him a bit. 

Then a crash from the living room had her quickly rushing to see what had fallen over and why, Chance still barking. That's when it happened, a force pulled her towards the strange, green light that looked like it was looking into a devastated warzone.

No neighbor heard her screams. No one would realize she was missing until Monday morning, when she didn't show up for work.

When she woke it was dark, her pajama bottoms were covered in dirt, and she just felt gross, like she hadn't showered in three days. The worst part was her ears were ringing and there was an ache coming from her left hand. When she brought her hand up to examine it, the sound of shackled chains assaulted her ears. She couldn't lift her hands past her chest. 

When the door slammed open, her amber eyes winced at the sudden light. 

That was four months ago.

Now she knelt in front of a ten foot beast that glowed red. The Elder One who had been behind all of her trials to date. 

"This doesn't make sense! Let me understand!" She begged, out of breath from being knocked away from a trebuchet by a Dragon. A FUCKING DRAGON!

"Your understanding is not required, if you gain it, consider yourself blessed." The beast spat as he inched closer. "I am here for the anchor, the process of removing it begins now." And that's when Grace cried out. 

The black orb pulled at the magic seeping from the mark on her left hand. It was more agonizing than when she first arrived in Thedas, but she had also hardened since then, learned to handle pain better since being named The Herald of Andraste, a Goddess that she didn't know or believe in. 

Her ears also came to a point now, and she was almost a foot shorter than her already average height of 5'6". More monologue later and she was hoisted up by only her wrist, face to face with the beast called Corypheus. 

When he realized he couldn't remove the anchor, however, he threw her, quite hard, against the trebuchet. Her head bounced off the ironbark surface before she regained her constitution and stood, leaning against the wood, hoisting a sword she could barely grasp.

"You think I'm going to fight you, but that's not why I kept you talking." Grace said, heaving and smirking as she dropped her sword, slid across the snow grabbing her bow and fell hard into a shaft she had noticed not a second before leaping off the trebuchet. 

Landing hard about fifteen feet from the top of the shaft knocked the wind out of her for the fourth time in just under two hours. When she finally stood, every bone and muscle in her body protested, her head spun, and then she vomited what remained in her stomach from earlier in the day.

_Definitely a concussion, at the very least._ She thought before using the stone wall to balance herself as she slowly made her way through the dark tunnel before her.

It was an agonizingly slow walk through the cave she found herself in. She could feel the dripping from icicles she couldn't see above her. It was hours before she found a way out of the cave, and demons stood in her way. Without much thought, she threw her left hand into the air, which quickly dispatched the demons, and placed it back over her sore ribs. 

It wasn't until she came upon a cold cooking fire that she realized the rest of the Inquisition was probably several miles away, and she wasn't moving very fast between being injured, and trekking through knee-deep snow. In a blizzard. Probably with internal bleeding. 

The second day, she had to stop and take a break. She could swear just before the sun came up she could see fires burning in the mountains ahead of her, but it was at least thirty miles away. 

She knew if she fell asleep with her head injuries, she might not wake up. One of the few things she was grateful to know from growing up with brothers in modern times. Concussions could be severe, and she could be wrong about her head injury. 

It was at least midnight on the second day before she saw the fires burn in the distance. The armor she wore, though mostly leather, was soaked through. It left her chilled to the bone. 

Closer now, she untied the sash at her waist and pulled the long, leather scout coat off, tossing it and the red sash into the snow. 

It was at the opening to a small mountain pass that she began to see tents scattered and brontos grazing in the grass sheltered by the mountains from the snow. The moon was low in the sky when she collapsed to her knees and heard faint, but familiar voices calling to her from what seemed to be farther and farther away.

"It's her! Herald! Herald, can you hear me? Grace, wake up!" It was Cullen's voice that called to her.

The last sensation she remembered before succumbing to the darkness was being covered with something warm and lifted by strong arms as her now very long, dirty blonde hair pulled her head back over the arms that cradled her small frame.

It was dark still when she woke next to mother Giselle. She felt much better, thanks to Adan, probably. 

"I should help them plan, we don't know where to go from here." Grace said, escaping the confines of the medical tent. Standing, she was in a clean pair of black leggings, a very loose tunic, probably one of the men's, and she had bandages around her ribs. She was also wrapped in Cullen's mantle, which made her search for him. 

When her amber eyes found his, she smiled and noticeably relaxed. He was okay. That's when Mother Giselle started to sing a beautiful song, which everyone joined in on as they began to kneel in front of Grace. 

Just as she was about to return Cullen's mantle, she was practically accosted by Solas, who was her friend, but also gave her a migraine. He explained that one of their people had not been held so highly in several ages. 

It took everything she had not to blurt out that she wasn't an elf, but the facts were still that in Thedas, she _was_ an elf. Once Solas told her that they had to head north, and told her about a keep hidden in the mountains, she limped over to tell her council.

When she had a chance, she finally pulled Cullen aside. "You found me." Was all she could muster without tears in her eyes, instead, she wrapped her arms around his middle and hugged him without more words. He reciprocated with a gentle hug, for fear of hurting her she assumed. 

After a few drafts of the sour healing potion, they were off the next morning, led by Grace and Solas to a new home.

_Is that what Thedas is to me now? Is this home?_ _It feels like it._


	2. Sunshine and Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don't even ask, it's 3am...

It took eight and a half days to get to the place Solas led them to. "Skyhold." The keep, though in absolute disrepair, was beauty incarnate to Grace. 

It was a beacon, even if a small one, of hope. Grace never signed up to be a hero, but here she was saving people. 

In the weeks following Skyhold's discovery, people from everywhere were arriving, and The Inquisition had nowhere to put them. The main castle was basically a hardhat area, Leliana wouldn't even let Grace inside. 

Grace had been staying in a private chamber under the battlements until Josephine knocked one morning asking for Grace to join them out in the courtyard. She quickly dressed in the oversized cotton undershirt she had kept from when she woke in the camp. It hung off her right shoulder, but she didn't really care. Comfort was what mattered to her here. She quickly tucked the tail of the large shirt into a pair of drakeskin breeches, and had her maid help her with a short sash to keep the shirt from showing more than it should. 

When she stepped out of the small bedroom, Cullen, Josephine, Leliana and Cassandra were all talking in a circle. When Cassandra noticed her, she waved her over.

"Whatever happened, I was asleep!" Grace joked as she elbow jabbed Cassandra playfully, laughing. 

"The Herald and her sense of humor. Come with me, Grace." Cassandra beckoned as she headed towards the stone steps leading up the hill.

"They arrive daily from every corner of the region. Skyhold is becoming a pilgrimage." Cassandra began as she kept walking towards the stairs. "If word has reached this many, it will have reached the Elder One." She said, still walking, but now they were headed up the stairs. She went on about how this was not the war that was anticipated, and then she shocked Grace more than when the two first met.

At the middle of the staircase, which looked over the courtyard where people were now gathering, looking up at her and Cassandra. "You are the creature's rival because of what  _ you _ did. And we know it, all of us." Cassandra looked back for a second, "The Inquisition requires a leader, the one who's  _ already _ been leading it." 

When Leliana appeared with a longsword in her hand, Grace turned towards Cassandra, who just nodded. 

Taking the sword from Leliana, Grace looked at it in her hands. "But I'm not of this world, Cassandra. You know this. How can I lead an entire Inquisition?" Grace asked, the worry evident in her amber eyes as she searched the Seekers blue ones for an answer.

"You have what it takes, Grace. Every one of us has seen it." Cassandra said approvingly. 

"I will lead as one of them, not over them." Grace said her thought aloud, and was greeted by affirming noises from both ladies. Lifting the sword in the air as Cullen looked Grace in the eye and smiled was all it took for her heart to melt. So much so that she wished she didn't have to leave for the Storm Coast that night. 

The Great Hall was a mess, and Varric had set up a meeting with someone for her. Leliana promised Skyhold would look more presentable when Grace returned in three weeks. 

Grace was brushing her horse when someone clearing their throat startled her, "Cullen! You nearly scared me half to death. Shouldn't you be at supper in the tavern?" Grace asked as she hoisted a saddle from a wooden stand and tossed it over her Ferelden Corder's back.

"I-I wanted to see you off. When you came to see me by my workstation earlier, I… just come back, Inquisitor." He said before smirking at her bare feet. 

"I will only be gone three weeks, Cullen. I was in the Hinterlands much longer." She said as she whirled around, almost into Cullen. Her long braid landed on her left shoulder as she looked up at him; he wore trousers and a shirt that oddly resembled the one she currently wore over a pair of leggings.

"I will return your shirt when I return as well." She said, reaching around his torso for her horse's bridle.

"It… um… looks better on you. Keep it, Inquisitor. I insist." He said, rubbing the back of his neck. It was a habit Grace was familiar with, whenever Cullen was around her, alone, he stammered and rubbed his neck. She made him nervous, she hoped in a good way. 

"Farewell, Commander. I will write to you when we arrive." Grace said, smiling up at her Commander as she heard Sera making fun of Vivienne and Solas in turn as they came down the stairs towards the barn. 

"My Lady." Cullen said, grasping her right hand and gently kissing the back of it before retreating to his office on the battlements. 

"Goodnight Curly!" Varric called to Cullen as Varric sauntered up to Grace. "Hey, Sunshine, when are you and Curly gon…" Varric started before Grace interrupted.

"Mind your own business, Varric." She said in an almost singsong voice as she strapped the saddle around her horse and tied the straps. 

"Fine, but it's gonna happen. I have that feeling, Sunshine." Varric stuck his tongue out before climbing up on his own horse. 

Two weeks later, Grace and her companions had finally finished closing rifts on the Storm Coast and looking for traces of Wardens. They were sitting in camp, drenched at the end of the day with their furs pulled close as they sat just inside their four tents. Grace got her own, and everyone else shared. Shivering, Grace penned a final letter to Cullen before they headed back to Skyhold in the morning:

_ Commander, _

_ We have finished here in the Storm Coast. All rifts closed with my magic palm. Still getting used to writing with a quill and ink and sending letters with a bird. I will explain that later. I hope everything is going smoothly at Skyhold, I cannot wait to be back. Out of the cold and wet. Fur doesn't really keep out the wet much. Neither does leather, actually.  _

_ We expect to be back within four days, please tell Josie I expect that warm bath when I return. _

_ Grace _

Letting the ink dry on the parchment before sliding into the silverite cylinder on her messenger bird's leg; Grace gladly took a mug of warm Tevinter wine graciously shared by Dorian. 

What wasn't expected on the road back to Skyhold was a horde of demons pouring out of a Fade rift. A terror demon slashed into Grace's right shoulder when they were less than an hour from the gates. 


	3. Nightmares and Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is based mostly around Into the Abyss
> 
> The song for this chapter is Raise Hell by Dorothy

"What happened?!" Called Cullen, who stood aside as Grace's companions came flying through Skyhold's gates.

"Demons attacked on the road. She'll be alright, Curly." Varric assured as they stood back, watching Iron Bull pull a slumped body from his horse. Golden curls swaying in the warm afternoon breeze the valley before them allowed. Cullen's heart fell, he had promised her that he wouldn't let her come close to death again.

He should've known it to be an empty promise. Grace ran into danger often. 

"She only passed out from the pain. Calm yourself, Cullen. She'll have a nasty scar, but Adan is quite used to patching her up." Bull said as he joined Varric and Cullen, watching Adan work over their friend.

Two hours later, Grace woke with a headache that would make a bronto cringe. "Adan, why do your potions give me a headache?" She asked as she inspected the three large pink scars across her right shoulder.

Cullen walked into the large bedroom at the top of the west tower. Adan was still there, making sure she was alright. He handed her a violet potion in a small vial, "for your headache, My Lady." 

"Looks like you won't get your shirt back after all, Commander." Grace said, raising from her bed to cross to where Adan had to cut her shirt off. The thin cotton lay in ribbons in a bucket. 

Cullen shook his head and crossed the room to where she stood in only a silk shift. He raised her chin so her eyes, the same color as his, looked straight into his soul before her lips came crashing into his.

Cullen, though surprised, let one of his hands find the small of her back and the other the base of her neck. The kiss felt like it lasted an eternity. That was until Dorian cleared his throat and handed Varric a hefty coin purse and Cullen spun around. "Told ya, Sparkles. I'm never wrong." The cocky dwarf commented.

Before Cullen could blush, an arrow flew over his shoulder and lodged itself into the stone between Varric and Dorian, who bolted for the stairs laughing hysterically. When he turned around, Grace was knelt on her new desk, bow in hand laughing as he shook his head. "Teach them to put bets on my relationship status. Dorian bet It'd be Solas, by the way. Honestly, being around Solas is like a constant history lesson…" she was interrupted when Cullen pulled her to him once more and kissed her. 

She was safe, a little worse for wear from being in the constant rain and muck for weeks, but she was safe in his arms _now_. 

The next week was spent preparing for the siege on Adamant Fortress as Hawke and his wife, who was a tiny, shy elf named Merrill, had returned to Skyhold with Stroud. 

Grace was outfitted with lighter armor, as she requested. She knew how hot the desert was and she wasn't making that mistake again. Vivienne kept getting her to prepare for the ball in Halamshiral, but Grace stood her ground.

"Vivienne, Adamant Fortress, DEMON ARMY! I think that comes before a ball that is still weeks away. This is happening _NOW_ , we need to stop it." Grace practically yelled at the woman, who backed off, nodding. People applauded the way she handled it.

Between sneaking kisses in between war council meetings, and shared suppers in Cullen's office, it was mostly business. 

Cullen would every now and then find her singing strange songs aloud while she made her arrows, or sharpening her daggers. Whatever she was singing, it was beautiful. Some song about loving someone like you would lose them. 

He tried to be inconspicuous when she was singing, she would always stop if she sensed someone listening. He was so astounded by the change he saw in her in the past six months. 

When he first saw her, she was lying unconscious in a chantry cell. Now he looked upon a woman who knew nothing about fighting when she arrived in a new world, and was now a force to be reckoned with. She had knowledge no one in Thedas had, spoke of things like airplanes and skyscrapers. 

She confounded and amazed him all at once, even when he admitted his stopping Lyrium. "I respect what you're doing. My brother had a drug problem too. It's never easy coming down." She said, a soft smile in his direction had his heart stuttering. 

Now he was sending her into a fortress full of Wardens he knew weren't thinking clearly. 

A week later, camp was being made within eyesight of the fortress, siege equipment was being moved into place. 

It was a scene from a period film that Grace was the protagonist in. She sat against Cullen around a fire the night before the siege. All of the friends she had made were there, every one of them. Sera flicked pebbles at Vivienne, Bull was sweet talking Dorian. Everything was right with the world as she held Cullen's hand in hers, laughing at some stupid joke Hawke said. 

"Whatever it takes Cullen, if we lose here, we lose _everything!_ " She said to the man in the lion helm as she dispatched a Despair demon with a rain of arrows. She could afford to be affectionate with him when there wasn't a battle to be won, but on the field, she was the _INQUISITOR_. And every single one of her inner circle and council knew the difference between relaxed Grace and Inquisitor Grace. 

Relaxed Grace was full of light and wrinkled her nose when she laughed.

Inquisitor Grace was a force of nature as arrows flew and blades fell. She was the Boss, and people depended on her to get them home alive. 

This was Inquisitor Grace telling Cullen to keep forces off her men, but off her as much as possible too. "My men come first, Cullen. If it's too heavy, pull them back. Come on boys. Time to raise a little hell!" She hollered to Dorian, Solas and Iron Bull as she pulled her daggers from their sheaths at her back and smirked at Cullen as she spun them and ran forward into the thick of it. The soldiers who survived the rocks began cheering when they heard her say this. It had become her before-battle mantra. 

They cleared the battlements quickly, but now she was chasing Warden-Commander Clarel with a dragon on her ass. Turning a corner, it was the end of the line on a broken bridge. A dragon stood between her and Clarel. 

The Dragon was deflecting everything Clarel threw at it after she dropped Erimond with a stonefish to the gut. That was when all hell let loose, literally. Clarel was thrown from the Dragon's maw, the bridge had begun to collapse as Clarel injured the dragon. 

"Well, shit. Back in the fade. This was _not_ the kind of hell I wanted to raise today." Grace said as she stood from where she landed on the rocky ground, rubbing her right elbow.

"You must've opened a rift, and we fell through." Dorian suggested. 

"This is amazing! To actually walk in the fade. Look, The Black City, almost close enough to touch." Solas said, obviously way too excited to be in the fade physically. 

"Solas, focus please. How do we get _out_?" She asked, rolling her eyes. 

"There, that could be the rift Erimond was trying to pull the nightmare from." Dorian said, pointing some distance away to a giant rift. Nodding, the group set towards it. 

With a final arrow, the nightmare demon was dust at Grace's feet. Then they were hightailing it towards the rift back into Adamant. That's when Stroud told them to go ahead and leave him as he began slicing at a giant spiders legs. Everyone else but Grace, Hawke and Stroud had already gone through. Hawke had to pull Grace by her arm, "we can't just leave him!" She screamed.

"We have to, Grace. He's made his decision, time to go." Hawke said as tears sprung to Grace's eyes. 

She was sad, and pissed, that she left a man behind in that place. She stood in the center of the courtyard at Adamant and closed her left hand, closing the rift and killing any demons that were left.

"Where's Stroud?" One of the wardens asked, and Hawke had to take over as Grace couldn't. 

Her and her companions left the fortress without a second look. That wasn't how it was supposed to go. Not to Grace. She would never leave someone behind like that.

  
The entire trip through Orlais was filled with Grace's screams in the night. She knew what it was. From getting her memory back to fighting that... _thing_. It was PTSD. Cullen shared her tent anymore on the road back to Skyhold. It helped having him there to quell her night terrors.


End file.
